Iraqi PM Nuri Al-Maliki has played the sectarian card, elbowing Sunnis to the political sidelines, and ignoring their grievances. That played into the terrorists’ hands.

If the violent chaos that has engulfed Iraq isn’t a death knell for the country’s hope of recovery from despotism, American invasion and sectarian violence, it is a hideous warning. Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki is taking his oil-rich nation of 33 million down a Syria-like road to ruin, and seems unwilling or unable to change course.

The desperation in Baghdad is palpable as thousands of battle-hardened fighters from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a vicious Al Qaeda offshoot led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, raise their black banners across much of the country. Iraqi officials call them a “mortal threat,” more dangerous than Al Qaeda was.

From their base in Fallujah the Sunni fighters overran Iraq’s second biggest city Mosul this past week, which fell without a fight. They terrorized its 2 million residents, routed the Iraqi army, sent 500,000 people fleeing, seized strategic roads and surrounded oil refining facilities. They also overran Tikrit and Baiji and threatened Samarra, all along the Mosul-to-Baghdad route.

That left a shaken Shia-led Iraqi government pleading for American airstrikes and other military support, and powerful Shia clerics urging able-bodied men to fight off the marauders.

On Al-Maliki’s shaky watch Iraq has sunk desperately low since U.S. President Barack Obama pulled out the troops. While the jihadis may not have the staying power to hold on to their gains, people wonder, with reason, whether Iraq’s days are numbered as a loosely unified state. And what Washington can do from the sidelines to help.

Al-Maliki is a polarizing politician from the 17-million Shia majority who has held office since 2006. His party won last month’s election, giving him the prospect of a third term in office. But after the U.S. pullout in 2011 he reneged on a power-sharing deal with the country’s large Sunni and Kurdish minorities, numbering roughly 9 million and 6 million respectively. That shattered bargains the Americans had brokered with Sunni tribal chiefs to secure their loyalty after bloody sectarian strife early in Al-Maliki’s tenure. The Kurds, for their part, are already autonomous.

Since the American withdrawal Maliki has played the corrupt sectarian card, concentrating executive authority in his own hands, including control of the military, intelligence and police ministries. He has elbowed the once-dominant Sunnis to the political sidelines, sharpening their grievances. And has ignored regional Sunni demands for basic services. That played into the terrorists’ hands. Disaffected Sunnis including remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime and the military who once repudiated ISIS-type jihadists now look the other way or, worse, support the insurgents.

This is a tragedy for Iraqis who hoped to forge a healthy parliamentary democracy and a more or less unified state out of the rubble of despotism. More than 133,000 Iraqis died in direct war-related violence since the U.S. invasion in 2003 and twice as many more may have died from war-related disease and hunger. It is discouraging, too, for Americans who invested $1 trillion and nearly 4,500 soldiers’ lives toppling Saddam’s regime and trying to piece together a new one.

But it is no less alarming for the Middle East generally. ISIS is an Iraqi offshoot of Al Qaeda that has been fighting Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria. The group is powerful, battle-hardened, well-armed and financed, and dreams of creating an Islamist caliphate traversing the Iraq/Syria border. That would further destabilize the region and provide a safe haven for terror and its export.

Despite the jihadi gains in recent days, Iraq is not lost yet. Al-Maliki can still count on Iran’s support. In Baghdad Shia militias are mobilizing. The Kurds are battling ISIS in the north. And the Americans are providing military support including intelligence.

But if Iraqis aspire to a state that is more than a rump Shia enclave, they will need to find leaders who see further than Al-Maliki, who are more adept at sectarian coalition-building, and who are prepared to share political power and the nation’s wealth. The black banners should focus minds.

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